Book

Oh, and guess who joined us at class last night?

Martha Raddatz from ABC News. We read her book "The Long Road Home."
Discussed it, and she signed copies. I hope i wasn't too in her grill.

more on this later. it's lunchtime.

ACLU Press Conference

I swear, I never know what the day will bring.
Yesterday, I went to my internship. While parking and feeding the parking meter beast, I saw one of the station reporters doing the same. So we chatted while walking to the station. She told me she had an event to go to at noon. I asked if I could shadow her today if Boss-Lady (not her real name, but it's her name in this blog... she's cool people) didn't have anything else for me to do.

She didn't, and thought it would be valuable if I trailed R.J. for the day.
So I hung around the staion for about an hour, surfing the web, looking for whatever background information I could find on the subject...

around 11 we left. it was the funniest drive to downtown d.c. i have ever taken! 30 minutes later and a stream of expletives from the R.J., and a near accident, we parked and walked a few blocks to the ACLU office.

Up the elevator we went, where R.J. introduced me to someone from CBS News. I liked the orange plaid-ish button-down shirt he was wearing.

I noticed the dress of the press. Some were suited and booted like R.J. Others very casual. I know I love a pair of jeans and a t-shirt any given day! We were given food, and then ushered into the conference room.

R.J. was setting up the recorder, plugged it into the mult box... she was situated on the front row. I sat next to her... i was taking names from the nameplates placed in front of the participants... and this cameraman walked up to me and said

"excuse me... you're very tall...
and your hair is very tall [it was... he was not joking]...
and the cameras can't see the participants... so would you mind moving aside?"

of course i could have been offended, but what for? I am indeed tall... and my hair is indeed BIG! So I moved...

To shorten this story, the conference was with the ACLU, a member of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and two relatives of one of the Jena 6. It was interesting.
It was nice. I'm glad I went.

Barack Obama and Washington D.C. Mayor, Adrian Fenty

WASHINGTON—This entry is a day late, due to tiredness and busyness both seen and unforeseen.

Monday afternoon I was at my internship when I heard my phone buzz. I had a text message from R.L., the ONE Field Coordinator for the DC/MD/VA area.

Here’s the gist of the message. I have tickets to the Obama rally tomorrow night. Let me know if you’re interested. I have to give your name to the organizers.

I was tempted to do my regular routine: “The rally will be in the evening… after a long day of classes… I’m going to be tired… Should I go?”

I gave in to the temptation, I don’t know why… But after awhile, I figured “Girl, yougon’ be tired anyway, whether you go straight home or to the Obama rally. You’re still gonna have stuff to do even if you do go home and get a little bit done. Might as well see Obama’s fine self and hear in person what the brother has to say. And besides, if you go home, all you’re gonna do is unwind before you get to work anyway!”

Self talk done, I sent a response to R.L. “Yes!” and gave her my name.

True to form, I was wasted after class, but excited about the rally. I was late like a mug, but went anyway. I figured Obama is half black, so the rally would get started half late. I’m not stereotyping. I’ve learned that there’s Latin time too. When I was in Spain, I was shocked to learn that Spaniards, at least the ones where I lived, were acquainted with CP time. Lateness brings cultures together, I suppose.

The rally was nice. I enjoyed his message… Reminded me a little of church outdoors with no seats. I saw everyone there. White, black, male, female, gay, straight, cool cats, and unapologetic nerds. Everyone was there. It was an interesting mix… Just like this country.

I wish class ended early so I could have gotten closer… but the photo of Obama with D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty was the best I could do outside of shoving and elbowing my way to the front, climbing on stage and snapping a photo in his grill. I was also not interested in getting arrested.

Speaking of arrested, the following Thursday night, after class, I found myself at another event I didn’t plan to attend. It was a panel discussing their take on this current administration and the Iraq war.

Interesting panelists were there, including a young man named Sam Provance, who was ostracized for testifying about the Abu Ghraib scandal.

There was one part of the program where one of the panelists said “If you’ve been arrested in the past week, please stand!”

A bunch of people stood, including gentlemen who looked like Viet Nam veterans, one who kept raising his fist in the air when an applaud-able point was made.

Outside of Sam Provance… who, by the way, said he’s ostracized, his wife divorced him, he’s barely making ends meet… He’s a boy-faced man, who wore plain black slacks, a black shirt and a reddish tie… Nothing about him spoke of wealth, prestige… And that is something that makes me wonder… Why does it seem that vets who serve in wars get the short end of the stick? Those who are wounded… it’s like they get a couple of claps for going, and sacrificing a limb or two, and if no limbs, maybe they sacrifice their sanity while absorbing wars horrors…

And then they come home to be treated like a red-headed step child… or even worse… a black man getting lynched in the pre-civil rights deep south.

Anyway, a very remarkable part of this program was a video of Vice President Chenney from 1994… Chenney was saying why they cut their losses in the first Gulf war… He also mentioned the quagmire that would result if they kept fighting in Iraq at that time…

It was almost prophetic… everything he described and said would happen if they stayed during the first gulf war… is happening NOW. We’re in the quagmire he predicted. Since he knew it would be a quagmire back then, what in the world changed and made the administration think it would be a good idea to invade Iraq in 2003?

It's a shame it's even come to this... IT'S 2007

This whole Jena 6 situation is disgusting.
Folks just need to get it together and love each other.
But this case is just another blatant and terrible reminder that there are indeed at least two sets of justice in this country. There's the white set and the black set. Then there's the rich set and the poor set. Color and class based justice...
I wonder if there's also immigrant and so-called "native born" based justice...

While watching the Tavis Smiley Show last night, guest Cornell West said something like this:
Justice is love shown in public.
If what Mr. West says is true, then the Jena 6 situation is one of the finest examples of hatred available.

We've got to do better... Especially in a nation that has a so-called belief in God. It's no wonder some don't take Christianity seriously.